Do links in footers or side bars count less than links in the center of the web page?

[Ron10]

do links in footers or side bars count less than links in the center of the web page?  How much less if so?

I have some articles on my site. Would i get more of a boost in rankings to pages of my site by placing links in the text of my articles on my site to other pages on my site?

Thanks mozzers!

[johnny122]

Matt Cutts on sitewide links : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTjN9x-by-I

A previous question about it on the forum : http://moz.com/community/q/are-sitewide-links-bad-for-seo

[EduardoRuiz]

Links in footers and sidebards should be NOFOLLOW'ed, so in theory, yes, links on actual content should count much more.

[spencerhjustice]

You're talking about internal links from your own site to other pages on the same site correct?

If so, then I believe that I am correct in saying that the other two responses are irrelevant to your question because they are referring to sitewide links to other sites.

Interlinking is definitely important and as long as it is done correctly it can have SEO benefits but don't expect to see much of a boost without additional external factors, such as external links back to your site.

[JaneCopland]

"Would I get more of a boost in rankings to pages of my site by placing links in the text of my articles on my site to other pages on my site?"

As Spencer says, you're talking about internal linking with generally comes with a slightly different set of rules to inbound / outbound links to and from third-party websites.

Feel free to link to relevant parts of your site from articles, but do so where and when it appears natural, and don't overdo it. That is, don't link to a product every time you use the product's name or mention something to do with the product's function. Imagine if Moz linked to its blog home page from every page on the website that mentioned a blog in text. It would look manipulative and spammy.